Now that Fox News Digital has settled on a Tucker Carlson replacement, it’s moving some of its other hosts around as well to try and make its primetime lineup well-watched again. Among those changes was Laura Ingraham, who was moved from late-night to 7 pm.
FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott announced the lineup change in a statement released when Jesse Watters was decided on as the Tucker replacement, saying, “FOX News Channel has been America’s destination for news and analysis for more than 21 years and we are thrilled to debut a new lineup. The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come.”
Fox News Digital reported on why Ingraham was moved from the late night slot to the 7 pm slot,saying in the same report saying, “Ingraham, who is cable news’ highest-rated female host, has welcomed countless notable political figures, including presidents, members of Congress, and key White House officials during her time hosting the show that launched in 2017. “The Ingraham Angle” was the top-rated 10 p.m. program since on cable news since it debuted, and will now air earlier in the evening to kick-start Fox News’ primetime lineup.”
The move makes sense, as Fox News has suffered a dramatic fall in viewership since it fired Tucker, who has since taken to Twitter to post videos on subject of interest to his populist base. In fact, whereas Fox used to blow the combined results of MSNBC and CNN out of the water every night, now it has a hard time even beating MSNBC alone.
In fact, according to Mediaite, FNC and MSNBC are now neck in neck in ratings, with Fox generally winning on total viewers but losing when it came to viewers in the prime advertiser demographic (25 to 54).
New: According to Nielsen data, Fox News averaged 1,504,429 primetime viewers last week, while MSNBC averaged 1,520,857 primetime viewers.
Barring a last-second data reporting change, Fox's 120 week-long winning streak in primetime appears to be over. https://t.co/Q48BSYuFE7
— A.J. Katz (@ajkatztv) June 13, 2023
That’s a huge shift from when Tucker was still on Fox News: he brought in a huge number of people from that demographic and was the one FNC host who could get younger people to tune in. Now they’re very tuned out, as Glenn Greenwald noted on Twitter:
The 8pm slot on Fox with Tucker was not only consistently number 1 in the key demo – 25-54 – but routinely had 400,000 viewers or more.
Without Tucker, it's crashed to worse-than-MSNBC levels: barely 100,000 people.
Hannity is in 14th place, behind Joy Reid!
A total collapse. https://t.co/amcsLNIZMo
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 20, 2023
FNC’s post-Tucker ratings are so bad that Trump took to mocking the network for the ratings plummet during a recent interview with Brett Baier. During the interview, Baier accused Trump of being unable to win over independents and then claimed: “more independent voters watch Fox News than any other TV source.” Trump fired back by saying, “A lot less than used to watch it.”
Baier, responding, attempted to push back a bit, saying, “They do watch.” Trump didn’t back down. Sticking to his guns, he remarked, “A lot less, Bret.” Baier glared at Trump as he twisted the knife about the network’s crashing ratings. Fox News has attempted to stop Tucker from doing his videos with a cease and desist letter, but he has proven intransigent and kept doing the videos, blowing FNC’s ratings out of the water every time.
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